Helan Mountain Rock Art Research

The Helan Mountains in Ningxia is one of the important areas in which Chinese Rock paintings are distributed. As an ancient art, the Rock painting not only reflected ancient herdsman's lives and living environment, culture, thoughts and wishes, but also showed their emotional and aesthetic consciousness thinking, and an unusual artistic style. The Helan Mountain Rock Paintings help us to understand the whole cultural phenomenon.In this paper, on the basis of the field investigation and the analysis of the relevant literature, we discussed such questions as the characteristics of cultural connotation, the meaning of this study and how to protect the Helan Mountain Rock Paintings.This paper is divided into five chapters, the "sequence", "Introduction of the Helan Mountain Rock Paintings", " Composition and characteristics of the Helan Mountain Rock Paintings ", "Connotation of the Helan Mountain Rock Paintings," "The meaning of the Helan Mountain Rock Painting Research ".From this paper, we can know that the nature geographic environment is the background for the production of the rock paintings in the Helan Mountains. They were engraved early in the late period of the times old stone tools and mainly created in the times of new stone tools. The themes of the rock painting in Helan Mountains are related closely to the hunting life of the minority groups; so animals and actual things are the main topics. All the rock Paintings were engraved realistically with details. The simple lines, rustic color, the style based on reality and the use of formal beauty law made them charismatic. They are the real reflection of the state of life of people at that time, and the alive fossil of social and cultural situation of nomadic people for later generation to study. So they are valuable information for studying politics, history, painting, religion and customs of north Chinese herd minorities, although some of which had already weathered or had been destroyed by long time trials and hardships in varying degrees. We must take practical and effective measures to enhance the protection of this cultural treasure.